1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of providing a computerized documentation library, customized according to customer requirements and, more particularly, to a method for creating an indexed library of computer based documentation from a plurality of sources in such a manner that the documentation retains its original characteristics.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many institutions maintain massive documentation libraries. For example, Engineering companies require volumes of operating documentation and systems specifications for their various engineering equipment. Large computer departments need documentation on all the hardware and software in their charge. Legal companies, insurance companies, governmental institutions and educational establishments also maintain extensive documentation libraries.
Currently, rather than maintain large libraries of books and reams of paper, documentation is provided in digital format. Digital or electronic documentation is defined as any documentation and information that is presented in a computer readable format. The computer readable documentation is then placed on computer media together with a software tool for accessing, indexing, searching and viewing the documentation. Such media includes magnetic disks, optical disks, tapes and other storage systems. Presently, the most accepted media is a Compact Disk (hereafter referred to as CD). This media is a great improvement on the paper documentation media for several reasons, including:                CDs enable saving of great quantities of paper, and consequently are easier to store than tomes of books.        CDs and CD based libraries are cheap to manufacture and to transport.        Software based libraries can store massive amounts of information. A Computer Disk Read-Only Memory (CDROM) is typically able to store up to 650 Mb of data. A Digital Video Disk (DVD) is typically able to store up to 4.7 Gb (gigabytes) of data.        A multitude of different manuals of differing types and formats can be stored on one CD.        Software based libraries can make use of audio-visual instruction and graphic illustration.        Software based searches are more accurate and quicker to execute than paging through physical books to find specific data.        
Nevertheless, the CD method has several disadvantages, which make it so unwieldy that many companies prefer to revert back to the former paper method!
In order to illustrate the abovementioned disadvantages we can take an example of an Information Systems (IS) manager who requires to locate information in the company's CD documentation library. Large technical divisions usually receive a copious supply of CDs from their suppliers. Some CDs contain original documentation and others contain new releases and versions of previous documentation. A large technical division with many suppliers typically has a storage room full of different CDs containing documentation. When the Information Systems manager wants to research a point of documentation s/he firstly needs to search through mounds of CDs to find a relevant CD. Thereafter, the IS Manager must ensure that the CD is the latest release and version. Once the correct CD is in the IS Manager's hands, it is still problematic to find the exact documentation. Typically a supplier provides on a single CD the documentation for several related systems that s/he supports. The technical division may not even posses the majority of these systems. Often 95% of system documentation on the CD refers to systems that are irrelevant to a specific IS department's system requirements. In other words, typically the IS manager and the entire IS department that uses the documentation only require 5% of the information packed on the supplier's CD! As a result, the Information Systems manager now needs to perform another search through a quagmire of irrelevant material for the exact information required.
In many instances the relevant documentation from a single supplier may be scattered on multiple CDs, within multiple directories, arranged in different formats and intermixed with irrelevant and misleading documentation. Despite currently available search tools, the IS Manager inevitably wastes much time wading through inapplicable material in search of system specifics. Even a capable search tool may not provide exact results due to the volume of irrelevant data that it is forced to sort. Furthermore, even if the required data is available on the CD, it is often difficult to find due to the current search tools and/or poor cataloguing. Another problem is that there is no standard format for where data is located on a disk. One supplier may save documentation under the root directory. Another may choose a tree of sub-directories named and designed for various idiosyncratic reasons. In each case the IS Manager must physically search the nuances of different CDs to locate any semblance of required data.
Once the correct documentation has been located another problem arises. Often, data provided by different suppliers, and sometimes even by a single supplier on one CD, require different tools for accessing and reading purposes. For example, one supplier may write documentation in PDF format, which can only be accessed by Adobe Acrobat Reader. Another supplier may provide information in HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which requires searching with Internet browser applications such as Microsoft Explorer. Unless a compatible reader and search tool is installed on the computer where the IS Manager is working, the data that took much patience and toil to locate, is rendered inaccessible.
If this process of accessing documentation is laborious for a trained IS Manager, it is much more so for lesser skilled department members like junior programmers and Help-Desk assistants.
It is impractical for the IS Department to make a new concentrated library with documentation tailored to its specific requirements. The present means for doing so are typically manual, requiring human intervention at every stage. The computer division would need to employ a team of experts to determine requirements, to search the CDs for relevant documentation, to manually sort out of the collected documentation the required information, to check and store the results and to ensure that the correct tools for reading the different documentation are included. Only after performing the same procedure for each different set of documentation for every different supplier, could the team take the results and create a collected customized library of documentation on computer readable material. This process is ineffective and time consuming, especially on a commercial scale for large concerns.
Several systems have attempted to deal with some of these known problems.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,105,044, which is fully incorporated herein by reference, as if fully set forth herein, describes a means for taking an electronic document, formatting the document according to a style sheet and displaying the document on an output device. However, this method requires the restructuring of the original document into a new format. The document that the user ultimately reads is no longer in its former characteristic format as presented by the OEM.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,499, which is fully incorporated herein by reference, as if fully set forth herein, describes a Digital Library System. The system provides satisfactory cataloguing mechanisms. However this invention is aimed at interviewing Holocaust survivors and recording, categorizing and filing the interviews in such a manner that a researcher can gain access to all the data contained in the digital library. The aim of the invention is not to provide a filtered library of information, customized to the requirements of different groups of users.
Similarly U.S. Pat. No. 6,092,080, which is fully incorporated herein by reference, as if fully set forth herein, provides for a cataloguing system that can be used to perform content based searches on a central database. In addition, data that has been accessed is stored at the user's site and a local catalogue is accessed to identify data in a user request. Whereas this is a form of customizing the user's database, the customization is based only on previously accessed data. This is synonymous with a cache system in which previously accessed data is readily available, but first time access to data is unwieldy.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,860,068, which is fully incorporated herein by reference, as if fully set forth herein, describes a method and system for custom manufacture and delivery of a data product, does provide a system for creating a CD, the content of which is based on a customer's selection. However, the focus of this invention is to produce over the Internet a static CD with a limited content, generally of music, for resale. There is no means for updating the CD content when, for example, a new song is released. Further, a CD with a few songs does not require advanced indexing and searching.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,182,067, which is fully incorporated herein by reference, as if fully set forth herein, describes methods and systems for knowledge management in order to inform different users of a database system of relevant information, and to assist them in transforming the information into knowledge. The system establishes a profile representing a knowledge requirement associated with the user. Knowledge profiles are also defined by groups of concepts to be used in distinct ways. The relevance of documents is initially established by accumulated usage information based on prior usage relating to the individual documents. The list of documents is sorted by relevance and presented to the user for subjective assessment. The aim of the '067 invention is to utilize an entire database to facilitate an automated information management system.
However, the '067 invention does not provide a single compact database which takes into account all the possible requirements of users as defined by the system experts and designers. This system rather provides for the creation of a separate information bank for each user. Further, even though irrelevant material is not accorded a relevance value in each database, it is never the less included in the database.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,092,091, which is fully incorporated herein by reference, as if fully set forth herein, describes a device and method for filtering information and for monitoring updated document information. This invention most particularly operates on data on the World Wide Web (hereafter referred to as WWW) where anyone can add data in no manner of conformity. Data can be created and/or updated on the WWW without reference to the time of creation or updating. This invention provides a method of detecting changed data on the Internet, filtering the information and notifying interested users of the new or updated data. This system is therefore not a database management system of a corpus of relatively static data, but a method to search for selected pieces of dynamic information on the WWW.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, an automated computerized system that can produce from an aggregate of documentation a digital library that only contains documentation relevant to a customer's specific set of knowledge management and information requirements.
It would be further advantageous to have a method whereby the documentation retains its original format.
It would be further advantageous to have a method that enables searching the library, such that information can be easily accessed and displayed despite varied proprietary formats.
It would be further advantageous to have a method that enables library content to be easily updated.